What was C.S. Lewis’s academic field at Cambridge University?

C.S. Lewis held Cambridge’s chair of Medieval and Renaissance English.

In 1954, Lewis was appointed the first holder of the newly established Cambridge chair of Medieval and Renaissance English. He joined Magdalene College, Cambridge, after nearly three decades teaching English at Magdalen College, Oxford. He held the Cambridge position until his retirement in 1963.

The appointment reflected Lewis’s standing as a literary historian and critic, not merely as a popular novelist or religious writer. His academic work addressed medieval and Renaissance literature, including major studies of allegory, literary history, and sixteenth-century poetry. His book English Literature in the Sixteenth Century is a notable example of this scholarship.

The two similarly named colleges—Magdalen at Oxford and Magdalene at Cambridge—are easy to confuse. Lewis taught at Magdalen College, Oxford, then held his Cambridge professorship at Magdalene College. The Cambridge chair was specifically English literature of the medieval and Renaissance periods.